In case you somehow missed it, Hawaii's Kilauea volcano started erupting last Thursday, leaving molten paths of destruction on the Big Island near the community of Leilani Estates. The eruption was followed by a 6.9 magnitude earthquake on Friday. CNN reports that 35 structures, including 26 homes, have already been destroyed.

An online media company called WXChasing has been able to get a few up-close videos of what's happening there, including this timelapse dash cam footage of hot lava crossing a road and completely enveloping a parked white Ford Mustang.

If you have the means, please consider donating money to the Red Cross to help victims of the disaster. Read the rest

It just so happens that my friend Kyle Kesterson is currently traveling there. He's staying in Ubud, about two hours away from the volcano.

On Wednesday, he shared his experience of getting to and witnessing the eruption, alongside some really stunning photos:

While I appreciate the concern for my safety as messages have been pouring in about Mt Agung’s current eruptions the last few days, FEAR is the common underlying theme.

Those who know me, know that even the slightest whiff of fear must be faced head on and transformed into excitement.

So at 2am, my fearless friend Valeria and I found a bold and curious taxi driver to drive us 2.5hrs in the direction of Mt. Agun, cameras in hand. As we pulled up around 4:30am, we saw the glow from the magma lighting up the slow billowing ash entering the atmosphere. Underneath it, our entire horizon was made up of the ghostly shape of this restless, commanding, all powerful giant.

We sat, stunned in the deepest sense of awe, underneath the clearest Milky Way and longest shooting stars I’ve ever witnessed.
Instantly, I was small. Weak. Absolutely nothing against the formidable nature of nature. Nothing, but a spectator and participant in this collision of living energy.

Fear would have kept me tucked warmly in my sheets with the illusion that I was safe to begin with. But stepping through it, with complete reverence and heightened to the situation and ready to act, I am forever changed and more alive.

National Geographic's Travel Photographer of the Year Contest has announced the 2017 winner, and the grand prize went to Sergio Tapiro Velasco for this otherworldly shot of Mexico's Colima volcano erupting at night. Read the rest

Here's a live video of fiery Mount Etna, on the east coast of Sicily, Italy. The tallest and most active volcano in Europe erupted Monday night, and its pulsing, spewing flames are stunning - and hypnotic. Who needs a lava lamp when you've got the real thing? Read the rest

What are all those frothy bubbles rising from the sea floor and coating the submersible craft in this video? Why, it's liquid carbon dioxide, venting off an underwater hot spring connected to Eifuku volcano in Japan's Volcano Islands.

... pay attention at 38 seconds into the show. With utter disregard for the extraordinary environment a shrimp-like creature swims purposefully under the robot and exits stage lower right. It may not live in liquid CO2, but it doesn’t seem bothered by it in the slightest. We must also assume that it’s finding plenty of food within this bubbling environment.

Lightning dances in Shinmoedake's volcanic plume, the eruption having already led Japanese authorities to call on those living nearby to evacuate. Seen from Kirishima city, the light shows last only for a few moments, but the ash and rocks fall relentlessly between the prefectures of Miyazaki and Kagoshima. One of Kirishima's many calderas, Shinmoedake is 4,662 feet tall. Photo: Minami-Nippon ShimbunRead the rest

So I saw all of these mediocre pictures of that volcano in Iceland nobody can pronounce the name of, so I figured I should go and do better. But the flights to get over took forever as expected (somewhat). Four days after leaving I finally made it, but the weather was terrible for another four. Just before leaving it got pretty good for about a day and a half and this is what I managed to get

I was in Oxford when the volcano in Iceland erupted last month; since I couldn't get home, I took a little detour to Dubai via Paris and came back to San Francisco ten days later than originally planned. Thousands of others were in the same boat, and a bunch of us — mostly those who had attended the Skoll World Forum and TEDx Volcano that weekend — met up at a bar in central London. Thinking this was only going to be a three-day trip, I only had my G10 and a 2-gig memory card, but I managed to get some footage of people who were stuck in London. I gave my .mov files to viral video veteran Joe Sabia, who put together this two-minute mini-documentary about us, the Volcano Refugees. Starring: Larry Brilliant, Joi Ito, Marc Davis, Matt Flannery, Yvette Alberdingkthijm, Jenny 8. Lee, and many other interesting folks.

After last week's volcanic eruption, British Airways passengers are stranded all over the world (I'm one of them). BA is rebooking people who hold paid for, cancelled ticket for return flights as late as May 10, but are selling tickets on flights leaving tomorrow for thousands of pounds to the wealthy who want to get home as quickly as possible. BA has had a year of terrible behavior and service, screwing its union by trying to unilaterally impose a contract on its workers without negotiation, but this takes the cake.

"We are trapped in Delhi with our children Iona (14 - missing GCSE exams), Sophia (13 - missing her part in the school play) and Dylan (seven - missing home).

BA have offered us a flight home on 10 May (we have been stranded since 16 April), but are still selling tickets on Delhi-London flights for thousands of pounds (which we cannot afford). The rich are allowed straight on to flights while the poor remain stranded. This is the real scandal of the volcano crisis.

We are among the lucky ones who BA have put up in a hotel but, with spirits low and tempers high, trouble is brewing - some people even had a "sit-down protest" in the hotel lobby on Wednesday. The Ramada in New Delhi is a very nice hotel, but our money has run out and we can't even afford the bottled water."

Also at TEDx London, Jeff Skoll — eBay's first president, founder of Participant Media, and the namesake for the conference that had brought us to the UK in the first place — read us a poem he wrote about the volcano:

This is an ode to the volcano
That sent our travel plans into the draino
I'm not really one to complaino
But this all hurts my little braino
Madrid, Casablanca, Amsterdam, Rejkavik on cruiseships
The trains will fail
All the escape routes that we planned
Are blocked by nature or by man
We heard the French trains may soon be striking
At this rate we'll all be biking
With our luck we'll all be struck by lightning!
This is all rather frightening
So better we all meet at TED
That is what I should have said
So thank you June and thank you all
Damn the volcano, let's have a ball